


The Rules of Chess

by BCRebel



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Chess Metaphors, F/F, Ficlet, one part non-explicit porn, propunk - Freeform, two parts Rachel introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 17:31:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1313341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BCRebel/pseuds/BCRebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel thinks about what her decisions have cost her, and how it feels to be more than a piece in someone else's game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rules of Chess

It's in moments like this that Rachel thinks about everything she used to have - all the power and control, the world nothing but a game of chess laid out before her, the pieces moving at her command - and reminds herself that none of it was real.

The queen may be the most powerful piece on a chess board - and Rachel had been nothing if not a queen - but in the end even the queen is only a piece on the board. Rachel had spent years convincing herself she was player rather than piece - the control in the experiment who had convinced herself that control was something that belonged to her rather than something that she was - until a new piece had placed itself on the board, and changed everything.

This new piece had been neither Black nor White, not a pawn nor a bishop, neither knight nor rook. She had upset the game, and the players who had been comfortable allowing Rachel her illusion of control all these years had been forced to tighten their reins, moving pieces without her consent, reacting to variables she couldn't see, and reminding her of her place - all in an effort to force this new piece to function within their system, play by the rules of their game.

In the end they had failed, and Rachel had chosen to step back and let them, and her defiance had cost her everything.

Rachel looks down at the form laid out below her - at the face that matches her own, her wild and dark reflection - sees the unkempt hair spread across the sheets in waves of near black so different from her own, glances briefly at her double's wrists bound loosely to the headboard, then focuses in on the pair of eyes that set  _this_  doppelganger apart - fire to Rachel's ice - and sees a need and desire that matches her own.

She leans down, her mirror's lips only inches from her own and breathes " _Sarah_ ," into a mouth wearing a feral smile her own has never held. She trails fingers down her double's naked torso in a slow path that burns them both, leans in the rest of the way to capture that smile in a searing kiss.

Rachel thinks about everything she used to have, all the things she has sacrificed to be where she is right now - the wealth, the luxury, the illusions of control - and knows, beyond all doubt and without any self-deception, that it has all been worth it - is in fact no sacrifice at all - if only because it has given her this moment.

As her fingers burn their path further down the body beneath her and her teeth graze their own path along her double's neck, she hears her name whispered back in a voice that is almost her own, before it catches and draws out the last syllable into a breathless sigh as Rachel's trailing fingers reach their target.

All that Rachel had owned, all the certainty her old life had offered, all the illusory control whose sudden absence had left her feeling wretched and powerless, everything else that had comprised the life Rachel had given up when she had chosen to shrug off the chains binding her to her masters' chess board, none of it could compare to what she now had.

The unexpected piece, the unknown variable -  _Sarah Manning_  – the wild card whom rules could not contain, now writhes beneath Rachel, her own control willingly given up as she accepts  _Rachel's_  rules as her own. Rachel would give up any illusions, would sacrifice any wealth, and accept no luxury as substitute for the power she now has, this ability to contain and direct all the force of this dark maelstrom of a woman that is Sarah Manning.

As Sarah comes undone beneath her, moaning Rachel's name against her skin, Rachel's only thought is of the power of Sarah's dark fire and how Rachel is going to use it to burn her old chess board to the ground.


End file.
